Residential, commercial, and public properties, such as houses, condominiums, rooms, apartments, lots, campgrounds, and event and/or multi-purpose spaces, among others, often have available space that is underutilized. A property owner may wish to develop that space for short or long-term occupancy, but may be constrained by the practical and monetary investment needed to do so. Additionally, a property owner may be unwilling to commit to the permanency of a complicated or large-scale installation, such as an addition to a residential house, or the construction of a new building.
In a rental context, a property owner (also referred to herein as a “host”) may desire to rent a residential property (or a portion thereof) to a guest for a specified time period (e.g., a day, week, month, or other period of time). However, a host's willingness and ability to accommodate guests, and/or the number of guests they can accommodate, may change over time. As a result, a host may, at different times, have differing property capacity (e.g., occupancy) needs. For instance, a prospective host may be interested in temporarily hosting guests to determine whether the hosting process is a good fit. Alternatively, some hosts may temporarily seek to expand the number of guests they can accommodate, such as during busy times like holidays or during special events, when property reservations in an area may be high, and available properties may be scarce. Outside of a rental context, property owners may also wish to temporarily or permanently expand the occupancy capacity of their property for various reasons. For instance, a property owner (including private and/or public agents) may wish to quickly provide additional housing availability during disaster relief crises or refugee housing efforts. Additionally, scheduled or unscheduled events such as conferences, festivals, weddings, tourism, and community needs (for instance, for low-income housing), among other things, may temporarily or seasonally increase the housing needs of a particular property or geographic region.
Traditionally, in this scenario, hosts must decide whether to acquire new property or modify an existing property to meet the capacity needs for hosting guests. Either option may be an unreasonable proposition for a host. Initially, either option may be a prohibitively expensive capital investment. In addition, modification of an existing property may potentially require the host to stop hosting other guests at the property while the modification process is ongoing, thereby losing income. Once complete, the resulting increase in capacity may remain with the host, even when demand for the property falls, thus leaving the host with unneeded capacity and associated expenses. With regard to property rental, the quality of such new or modified property may not match preferences of guests, in which case the host may need to further alter the property.
What is more, the modifications necessary to increase housing capacity may require high-impact changes to the property. For example, building additional housing may require extensive digging of trenches or of a foundation space, or other environmental changes. Additional sources for power, water, and sanitation may also need to be created in order to support the newly-built structure. Such environmental alterations cannot be easily backed out after the need for the additional housing capacity has passed.
Still further, in the case of traditional short-term, temporary properties, there may be a great deal of wasted material after the housing need has passed. In disaster relief scenarios, for example, where new construction is built to house displaced populations, the housing may be destroyed or remain vacant after the immediate need has passed. Because of this waste, to manage cost, such housing must typically be constructed with low-quality materials, which may not satisfactorily meet the needs of the occupants.
In view of the above, a heretofore unaddressed need exists in the art for a high-quality, low-impact property that can be modified as the occupancy requirements or the aesthetic and/or functional goals of the property change, and that can be constructed with minimal waste of material or loss of property utility.